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Chinese characters - inefficient? | ||
Tags: Chinese Characters | Mandarin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| freakyqi Newbie United States Joined 5941 days ago 32 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 65 of 132 23 November 2009 at 2:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Ok, I admit I didn't read every post but I skimmed them and I think we're forgetting a HUGE POINT here:
There are 100-200 dialects in China and if they all wrote their words phonetically they wouldn't understand each other, whereas characters are what enables 1.3 billion people to communicate when their spoken languages all are incredibly different. Not to mention they can all read the same books, use the same dictionaries, etc. Yes, it's true the people who speak all those dialects *theoretically* learn Mandarin as well... but in a lot of places it doesn't get learned thoroughly, or the accent is so thick they resort to writing, because locals prefer their local language. It's like when we're forced to learn Spanish in school and all we do is pass the test but can't really use it. AND if you've every written characters with any fluency you'd see that it really doesn't take (much) longer than our alphabet. If you count the strokes made by the pen it all probably averages out pretty closely. English: "person" - I'm picturing about 13 strokes of the pen, sort of. Chinese: "person" - 2 strokes = 人 And of course lots of hanzi is more complicated but we've got common words to balance it out: one 一, 个，二，儿， PLUS the grammar is simpler and they use less words in a sentence overall. I'm going to the store now. (~50 strokes, 7 syllables) 我现在去商店。 (~44 strokes, 6 syllables) Learning it might be harder but once it's learned it's not more inefficient - in fact one could argue it's more efficient, and typing with it may actually be faster than English. 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6705 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 66 of 132 24 November 2009 at 9:46am | IP Logged | |||||
Good points. According to some statistical data I have come across each hanzi character corresponds to 1.6 latin alphabet letters on average for a corresponding text in English. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| freakyqi Newbie United States Joined 5941 days ago 32 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 67 of 132 25 November 2009 at 4:30am | IP Logged | |||||
Wow, statistical data! When you do something you do it right! :) I usually stop at educated guesses. I'd like to watch two groups of people write the same paragraph in each language and see who finishes first, hehehe... :) (and I miss China) :( (just sayin') 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Captain Haddock Diglot Senior Member Japan kanjicabinet.tumblr. Joined 6579 days ago 2282 posts - 2814 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Ancient Greek | Message 68 of 132 25 November 2009 at 5:50am | IP Logged | |||||
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Here's my own datum: one English word works out to 1.8 Japanese characters on average when translating
Japanese to English. Edited by Captain Haddock on 25 November 2009 at 5:52am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6705 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 69 of 132 25 November 2009 at 11:09am | IP Logged | |||||
Well, that's the information I saw reported, I may have been too gullible in accepting it at face value. I can't vouch for how reliable it is, or whether the statistical analysis had actually been performed as claimed. Still, with the enormous quantities of text that are easily available out there it should be a fairly simple investigation to make, and I have no specific reason to doubt that result. I'd be inclined to just consider it a valid approximation until any information to contradict it comes to light. 96.67% of all statistics found on the net are invented out of thin air anyway ;o). Edited by Hencke on 25 November 2009 at 11:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| maxb Diglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 6994 days ago 536 posts - 589 votes 7 sounds Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Mandarin | Message 70 of 132 11 December 2009 at 12:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
This has been discussed before, but the fact of the matter is that dialects written down as spoken in characters can be very different from written mandarin. And probably difficult to understand even for chinese themselves. So the characters themselves do not allow people to communciate, mandarin does. Of course, many words are the same across dialects so the characters do help. But it is a common misconception that chinese dialects only differ in pronunciation. They differ in grammar and word usage too. For example here is how you write "I don't understand mandarin" in mandarin: 我听不懂普通话。(I listen not understand mandarin) In cantonese it becomes: 我唔识听普通话。(I not can listen mandarin) As you can see the grammar is different. The word for "not" is different (不 vs 唔), and the word for "can" is actually also different even though it is not used in the mandarin version. In mandarin 会 is usually used in context like the above whereas cantonese uses 识。 Which is usually only used in compounds in mandarin. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5332 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 71 of 132 11 December 2009 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
Sure, but the fact that they use more or less the same characters makes it much easier to learn Mandarin, it's like a Swede learning English when 90% of the words are the same, that would be a breeze. And merely understanding it doesn't take much effort at all. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| freakyqi Newbie United States Joined 5941 days ago 32 posts - 43 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin | Message 72 of 132 11 December 2009 at 2:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
I still don't agree, maxb, though you make a good point about the grammar being different. But those are small differences that people who are educated enough to read & write characters could most likely figure out. Ok, so books could pose problems. I humbly bow to you. ;-) I should clarify, in my mind I was thinking more of people getting along on vacation or on business or if they're moving to a new part of China. If they go to the store and ask for an item and get a blank look, they can write the character - or even draw it on their palm or a table with their finger as they often do - and the other person will know. Funny little story: I did just that, went into a store asking for something, and the girl handed me a pad & paper & told me to write it. I laughed, because I'm a foreigner; if I can't SAY the word in Chinese there's no way in You-Know-Where I could WRITE it! LOL... So SHE WROTE it for me and asked if that's what I meant! STILL way off... she was treating me like a Chinese person. That's what she'd do to a fellow Chinese person from another area, they'd go to characters if they can't say it. :) I was flattered that I appeared to be so well-versed in Chinese (which I wasn't, but my pronunciation is good), but it was a useless solution for a beginner of the language. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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